Fans of the unit stack may love Civilization VI

Firaxis and 2K Games have announced Civilization VI. It’s coming out for PCs on October 21st. One of the issues with Civilization V that the game never overcame was that the AI didn’t know how to play the game. Throughout all the patching and expansions, the computer players never got any better at actually using the units it made against you. It routinely got hung up on shuffling units into ineffective positions because it just couldn’t figure out the one unit per hex tactical gameplay. It appears that Civilization VI may have a partial solution.

Expanding on the “one unit per tile” design, support units can now be embedded with other units, like anti-tank support with infantry, or a warrior with settlers. Similar units can also be combined to form powerful “Corps” units.

As long as the AI knows how to combine units effectively, this should cut the impact of choke points and ranges on individual units. It’s not the full unit stacking from previous Civilization games, but it’s a half-step back. Of course, the human player will also be able to use this feature to great effect. If there’s one thing people seem really good at is figuring out ways to break rules.